Until his retirement in 2015 Carroll William Westfall taught the history of architecture, most recently at the University of Notre Dame, which he joined in 1966. The author of three books and numerous articles concerning traditional and classical architecture and urbanism from antiquity to the present, he has a special interest in making knowledge of the history of architecture useful to architects and builders.
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The statues of Confederates that are targets of revised judgments about their subjects often occupy important places in our urbanism, which calls attention to the importance of urbanism in what we build.
Three memorable and familiar cities use their buildings and urbanism in ways that reveal their very different purposes, sacred, secular, and horrifically vile.
Opinion On Executive Order for the Classical Style in Federal Buildings
The most important buildings are built of masonry, stone if available, or brick often stuccoed to look like stone. Either way classical components suit the material best.
Ceilings do more than top off rooms. Some let us look into Heaven and others display technology at work.
Tradition carries the experience of the past into the present where innovations make it applicable to current circumstances. This reciprocity protects our liberty, and it guides the design of buildings that serve and protect that liberty.
Columns, piers, and walls traditionally have celebratory toppings. The capitals of the three canonic Greek and two Roman additions are the most familiar, but local variations abound, such as these in Chicago and in Richmond, Virginia.
Traditional architecture serves the public, common good by using a vestibule to make a clear connection between the public and private realms.
Tradition has always guided both vernacular and classical buildings, but now, with architects avoiding drawing on tradition, the present-day vernacular of the builders no longer benefits from innovations within the classical and architects ignore the vernacular’s innovations, with both suffering.
The classical is the indispensable contributor to the common good.
The architect as citizen seeks beauty as the counterpart to justice.
Democracy needs neighborhoods where diverse people mingle.
The happiness we pursue is more enduring and rewarding than the transient emotional lift of the sublime's novelty and drama. It resides instead in the beauty in the buildings we build and the urbanism we make with tradition’s guidance.
What is happiness and how does it relate to urbanism?
An update on the relevancy of statues in urbanism.
Carroll William Westfall investigates new modern construction in a historic neighborhood.
Carroll William Westfall discusses the loss of firmness, commodity and delight in modern architecture and urbanism.
American cities used to be more like ancient cities such as Rome which were built piecemeal to meet the needs of its citizens.
Carroll William Westfall discusses Frank Lloyd Wright's impact on traditional urbanism.
Buildings, like people, have faces that reveal their expressive character
Urbanism needs statues. Some simply become old friends, but others shout and you listen.
Demonstrators at the University of Virginia march to reclaim their campus and city.
Carroll William Westfall takes a look at the controversy surrounding the country's Confederate monuments.
Tradition is a Key Factor for Good Urbanism, Not Style.
Carroll William Westfall shares his observations from Sicily.
Carroll William Westfall looks at the ways traditional urbanism promotes the common good in communities, cities, towns and neighborhoods.
Carroll William Westfall discusses the relationship of good urbanism and beautiful buildings.
Carroll William Westfall discusses the development of preservation and urbanism, illustrating the problem with labeling a building "of its time."
Incremental change in architecture and urban development produces successful neighborhoods and cities.
Urbanism is what we build to serve our needs and desires in families and neighborhoods and on up in scale to cities, states and nations. It is the grandest, most complicated, complex, and extensive thing we build, but we underestimate its role in our lives, and it is tradition that makes urbanism valuable for us.
